Sjoerd Marijne’s India Blueprint: Inside the training, tactics and mindset shift driving women’s hockey team | Hockey News
The stories travelled ahead of him. Long before Sjoerd Marijne gathered the current core of the Indian women’s hockey team, the younger players had already heard whispers. About the grind, the discipline, and most famously, the eight-hour training sessions in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics. So when Marijne now casually asks, “Do you have heavy legs?”, the response is almost rehearsed. “No, no, no, coach.” The sessions may not (yet) be as brutal, but the message has landed. Loud and clear. The old-timers in the team — the Lalremsiamis, Navneet Kaurs and Sushila Chanus — experienced this after they qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in late 2019. When the players reassembled for the national camp in Bengaluru, Marijne — unhappy with the lethargy shown in the qualifying match — scheduled a one-off eight-hour training session. It started at 8 in the morning and ended at 4 pm, with a short lunch break being the only downtime. For Marijne, the significance of that marathon session was never about punishment. It was about imprinting a mindset …
